What would you do?

My completely biased opinion is that you should go with the D40 Vivid & Fresnel option for your toplight system. The Lustr+ is great, but there is still nothing that will replace the warmth of a tungsten source. With this combination, you will get absolutely beautiful bold as well as subtle colours along with the punchiness of tungsten. I think of the tungsten as the canvas and the Vivids as the colouring. I would think that 575 would be enough.

I think Lustr+ for sidelight is a great option. You'll want to look at the oblong lenses in order to control the beam. If the budget stretches, I would really try to put in a little bit of tungsten here as well, maybe some S4 Jrs at 375W? Or some older-stock lanterns?

Naturally I think that the Vivid 63 is the better option, especially if you ever want a "white" cyc. If you are only ever using bold colours, possibly RGBA is enough - as you know the Selador wins in the variations-on-white battle.

-luke-

I share a similar bias about having a tungsten source that supports a shutter cut. We do a lot of "box set" plays as well as musicals and dance recitals.  There are things a fresnel can do that you just can't get from a D40, or a PAR. Then again, there are things you can do with a D40 (strobe, instant colour changes, near-infinite colour palette) that a tungsten source isn't going to give you. -- For a moment there it felt like I was channeling Tom Littrell :) --

I didn't mention our existing inventory. Suffice it to say we have an adequate inventory of S4 and S4 Jrs, and S4 PAR EAs to cover off your suggestions for the sides. The plan in my head is to use D40s as tips in the stock plot and layer in whatever else may be required for a particular performance.

For our cyc, I would love to be able to get a second horizon line (top half v. bottom half) without a ground row, for things like naturalistic skies. Unfortunately, I can't come up with a cost-effective way to do that with any vendor's gear. There are a few out there that offer the right sort of lensing for a single fixture but don't offer the independent control of the top and bottom half of the fixture. Everything else involves twice the fixtures, or a lot of smaller fixtures, with a much higher cost per cell, what with all the extra cables, yokes, clamps, connectors, and DMX splitters.

luke.delwiche:  I completely agree with your recommendations.  This is exactly what we call the hybrid theatre.  And I love your analogy of tungsten being the canvas and D40s the paint.  Can I quote that sometime?

For the cyc, remember that even RGBA is very different than X7 color mixing.  (Of course, as a Selador co-founder, I openly admit my bias.)  If you compare side by side, RGBA fixtures still can't match the full warmth and richness of Selador in yellow / gold / orange tones, because they never use a sufficient quantity of amber LEDs to really make a difference.  In addition, you end up with an extremely limited range of blue tones--depending on the blue wavelength in the fixture, either you have nothing but gray between blue and green, or you're left without anything deeper than medium blue (no congo blue, indigo, purple, etc.).  Plus, like was said, X7 whites and soft pastels are unbeatable.

Having a multi-section cyc is wonderful.  We've done many installations where with everything just top-hung, we can use our secondary lenses to achieve nicely uniform stripes in two or even three sections.  (You'd swear there is a ground row where there isn't one.)  You might be surprised how you can get this kind of vertical control without greatly expanding your budget, because if a given string of fixtures is only lighting half or a third of the cyc, then you might get away with many fewer units to get the light output needed for each section.  It depends a lot on where they're hung in relation to the cyc and how much time you can give yourself to finesse the focus.  I wouldn't rule out the possibility, though--you don't necessarily have to double the fixture count to make it work. 

I would appreciated it you could spec something on the back of a napkin regarding number and type of instrument and suggested lensing. Our cyc is 24' x 40' with top and sides having trimmable masking. The top portion is usually masked out of sight so lit area would be 22' x 37'. The motorized batten we use for cyc lighting it is 4' downstage of the cyc fabric and can be trimmed as high as 28' (4' above the cyclorama).  I have all the time in the world to finesse the focus.

I've read all  the documents on the ETC site including the application guide but couldn't figure out how to translate good/better/best in the application guide into a combination where I trust my own judgment.

I would appreciated it you could spec something on the back of a napkin regarding number and type of instrument and suggested lensing. Our cyc is 24' x 40' with top and sides having trimmable masking. The top portion is usually masked out of sight so lit area would be 22' x 37'. The motorized batten we use for cyc lighting it is 4' downstage of the cyc fabric and can be trimmed as high as 28' (4' above the cyclorama).  I have all the time in the world to finesse the focus.

I've read all  the documents on the ETC site including the application guide but couldn't figure out how to translate good/better/best in the application guide into a combination where I trust my own judgment.